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Missing Toronto woman found dead on eve of her 23rd birthday

Chris Doucette, Postmedia Network

Thursday, November 30, 2017
1:12:20 EST PM

Tess Richey, 22, vanished Saturday, Nov. 25, 2017, after a night out at a bar in the Village with a friend and was found dead at an abandoned building near Church and Wellesley Sts. four days later. (Facebook photo)

TORONTO -- Tess Richey’s family should be celebrating her 23rd birthday, instead they are now planning a funeral for the young woman who went missing in Toronto's Gay Village area last weekend.

Toronto Police confirm Richey was found dead near Church and Wellesley Sts. around 4 p.m. Wednesday — not far from where she vanished four days earlier after a night out at a bar with an old friend from her high school days in North Bay.

“There is nothing at this point to indicate her death was suspicious,” Const. Allyson Douglas-Cook said Thursday, adding the Homicide Unit has not been called.

She said the investigation is ongoing and no further details will be released until an autopsy is conducted.

However, a source told the Toronto Sun her death is expected to be ruled a death by misadventure.

A building at Church and Dundonald Sts. where Tess Richey's body was found on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017. (Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun)

Richey's body was discovered at an abandoned building at Church and Dundonald Sts., just north of Wellesley St., and the source said it appears she fell down some stairs after a night of drinking.

Richey’s friend, Ryley Simard, has told the CBC she hadn’t seen her high school friend in more than two years and the pair met up late Friday at Crews & Tangos — a drag bar in the Village.

The pair had been drinking heavily and left the bar around 1:30 a.m., she said, explaining they walked up the street to a home where they hung out on the porch chatting with a woman who lived there and an unidentified man.

Simard said she left Richey, who lived nearby, around 4 a.m. and walked south to College St. to catch a TTC streetcar home.

A missing person sign for Tess Richey is seen across the street from the building at Church and Dundonald Sts. where her body was found on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017. (Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun)

Richey’s four older sisters and mother became concerned when they were unable to reach her Saturday morning.

Her family has said Richey, who had an Uber account set up with her mother’s credit card, appears to have ordered a ride because a series of Uber messages were left on her mom’s phone around 4 a.m.

"We just need the number five back," her sister Jenna Richey told CBC, referring to the youngest of the five siblings. "We need our girl back."

Richey’s sisters also took to Facebook in recent days pleading for help finding their missing loved one and posting photos of her, including one image snapped shortly before she went out for the night Friday.

The last message posted Wednesday morning by her sister Rachel reads: “It’s her birthday tomorrow! Let’s bring her home today.”